The Okotoks Food Bank was the biggest winner of the Second Annual Okotoks Cornhole Classic.
The big tournament was held on June 29th during the busy Canada Day long weekend.
This year’s event saw 63 teams, 126 players, and many families enjoying the tournament at Ethel Tucker Park.
Co-chair of the Cornhole Classic Shane Evong said that he and his friend Trevor Wheaton came up with the idea for a cornhole fundraiser a few years ago.
“We used to play cornhole when we were camping and we thought, ‘Hey, how can we teach our kids how to raise funds for the community’. What better way than to do it as a cornhole tournament.”
At the end of the festivities, Evong said they raised a lot of money for the Okotoks Food Bank.
“We raised over $4,500 for the Food Bank. That's $1,000 more than we got last year, and we had 10 more teams than we had last year.”
Although this was just the second-ever Okotoks Cornhole Classic, the sport has seen quite a jump worldwide in recent years.
“It is one of the fastest growing sports, I would say in North America and really just catching on here in Canada,” said Evong. “You can see leagues popping up all over the place, people getting more competitive around it. So, it's becoming more and more popular. "
He added that new leagues are scheduled to pop up locally and a league is already happening through Hub Town Brewing.
The United States even has a professional league, The American Cornhole League, which was founded in 2015. It hosts over 25,000 tournaments per year, with more than 100,000 players.